[Illustration: CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
Fourth Series
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.
NO. 732. SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1878. PRICE 1½_d._]
HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.
BY JOHN B. HARWOOD, AUTHOR OF ‘LADY FLAVIA.’
CHAPTER I.--THREATENED.
‘No, my lord; I do not know him; nor, I think, does any one in the
village. But during the few weeks that I have been at High Tor
Churchtown, I have seen him very often indeed.’
The speaker was a young girl, of some twenty years at most. Her bearing
was grave and modest, and her attire scrupulously plain; but there are
cases in which sovereign beauty will assert herself, and Ethel Gray,
the newly appointed school-mistress, was more than pretty. That slender
form and faultless face, the dazzling purity of the complexion, and
the lustre of the violet eyes, that contrasted so well with the wealth
of dark hair simply braided back from the temples and twisted into a
massive coil--these conferred beauty, if ever woman, since Eve's time,
deserved to be called beautiful.
It was a bright balmy day in June, and through the large window of
the school-room, now open, floated the scent of flowers and the hum
of bees. Within the room, standing beside the teacher, were two
gentlemen; while on each side of the table stood the children, their
wondering eyes fixed upon the visitors. They well knew the kindly face
of the gray-haired Earl of Wolverhampton, the elder of the two, whose
park-gates were almost within sight of the school of which he was
patron. But they had never before seen the shrewd rugged features of
the middle-aged member of parliament, the Right Hon. Stephen Hammond,
Under-secretary of State, by whom he was accompanied.
Ethel Gray's words had been uttered in reply to an inquiry from the
Earl as to a swarthy man of sinister aspect and powerful build who was
lounging near the low gate of the school-house garden.
‘That is not a face,’ said the Earl, thinking of quarter-sessions,
tramps, gipsies, and poachers--‘which I am pleased to see here among
my good people.--What is your opinion, Hammond, of the owner of it?’
‘I think that I had rather not meet him on a dark night,’ answered the
Under-secretary with a smile. ‘But perhaps, after all, the man is only
some sailor newly paid off; though he has a reckless unpleasant look in
any case.’
Perceiving himself to be an object of attention to the occupants of the
school-room window, the rough fellow who had been lingering at the gate
now turned on his heel, and with an air half-defiant, half-abashed,
slunk away.
Nor was it long before the old Earl and his guest, with an urbane word
or two of leave-taking to the pretty teacher, quitted the school, and
re-entered the carriage, which had been awaiting them in the leafy lane
beyond. Lord Wolverhampton, as the horses' heads were turned towards
High Tor, looked and felt pleased. He took an interest in the schools,
as he did in every detail of his property; and he had been anxious
for the Under-secretary's approbation concerning them. The Right Hon.
Stephen Hammond had, in the course of the tour which he was hurriedly
making through the country, visited many such places of education,
probably with a view to Hansard and Blue-books; but he was frankly
willing to give its meed of praise to that of which his noble host was
the patron. And praise from Mr Hammond was worth the having.
The carriage rolled on between high banks crested with hazels and gay
with wild-flowers, until at last it passed between the sturdy gateposts
of blue Cornish granite, topped by the grim heraldic monsters which
the De Veres had borne on their shields in battle for many a year
before they had become possessed of the ancient barony of Harrogate
or the modern earldom of Wolverhampton. It was a pretty park enough
that of High Tor, with its huge sycamores and avenue of wych-elms, the
fallow-deer feeding peacefully among the ancient hawthorn trees, the
tinkling trout-stream, and the lofty crag that stood forth like a giant
sentinel, as though to protect the mansion itself, surrounded by its
gardens and shrubberies.
‘Those are fine beeches!’ observed Mr Hammond, pointing to a clump of
silvan Titans that reared their canopy of leaves on a hill far away.
‘Ah!’ said the Earl, as a momentary shade passed across his face;
‘those are not on my land. They are on the other side of the
ring-fence, and belong to Sir Sykes, at Carbery Chase.’
‘It was all one property once, I think?’ said Mr Hammond.
‘Yes; but that was a long time ago,’ rejoined the Earl; but he did not
enlarge upon the subject, and the carriage rolled in silence along the
well-kept road towards the house.
Meanwhile the man whose loitering near the school of High Tor had
attracted some notice, had cleared the village, and was traversing
one of those deep lanes, with high banks densely wooded, for which
that southern county is famous. The nut boughs almost interlaced their
slender branches over his head as he passed beneath their shadow,
and the ferns grew so thickly that it was but here and there, in
golden patches, that the broken sunbeams could filter through them.
The wayfarer was, however, to judge from appearances, by no means
one of those for whom the coy beauty of wild-flowers, or the soft
greenery of the woodlands, or the carol of the birds, could have any
peculiar attraction. He pushed on, not hurrying his pace, but moodily
indifferent to the hundred pretty sights and sounds that vainly invited
his attention.
In person the stranger was, as has been mentioned, powerfully built,
and still active and vigorous, although his crisp dark hair was
grizzled by age or hardship. His keen restless eyes, sullen mouth, and
lowering looks, were scarcely calculated to inspire confidence. His
sunburnt face had evidently known the heat of a fiercer sun than that
of Britain; and near the corner of the mouth there was a dull white
scar, half-hidden by the clustering beard. Mr Hammond's conjecture as
to the seafaring character of the man was perhaps warranted by his
attire, which was of a coarse blue pilot-cloth, such as is worn not by
sailors only, but by many dwellers on the coast, whose calling leads
them to associate with mariners; and as regarded his bearing, he might
as easily have been taken for an Australian digger or Cornish miner as
for a seaman.
Such as he was, Ethel Gray was right in saying that this man's darkling
face had been very frequently to be seen in the village of High Tor
during the few weeks of her residence there. Who he was or whence he
came, no one knew. But he did nothing illegal in loitering about the
trim straggling street; and as our modern system does not encourage
rural Dogberries to meddle with suspected ‘vagrom men,’ he was left
practically unmolested as he lounged to and fro, talking little, but
listening much in the tap-room of the village ale-house, where the
rustics recognised in him the merit of one who carried spare silver in
his pocket, and would invest a little of it in eleemosynary pots of
beer. Himself not over-communicative, he seemed to have an aptitude for
making others talk; and if to learn the politics of the parish was his
desire, he certainly ought to have become tolerably well versed in them.
The swarthy slouching fellow trudged on, indifferent to the pale blush
of the wild-roses, to the scent of the violets, or to the fresh clear
song of the blackbird. He was thinking, thinking deeply, perceptibly
indeed, had any one been there to watch him, for the veins and muscles
of his beetling brows swelled and rose frowningly, as they do with some
men while racking their brains. Presently he emerged into a broader
and drier road than the moist shady lane which he had traversed, and
saw before him the lodge-gates of a park, the stone piers of which
were surmounted by a pair of couchant greyhounds in marble. One of
the side-gates stood always open, since there exists an ancient right
of way through Carbery Chase; and unchallenged, the stranger passed
through the gateway and entered the demesne. It was a fair scene on
which he looked. The golden sunshine fell, as if lovingly, on the
rustling beech-trees and spreading oaks, the ferny dells and grassy
uplands, the ancient trees of the grand avenue, and the bold blue swell
of Dartmoor rising bleakly to the northward.
Full in front, seen through a vista of lofty elms, was the great
house, rising stately in its fair proportions; mullion and ogive, and
gable and turret, and every detail, to the very vanes that flashed
and glittered on roof and tower, looking very much as they must have
looked when Queen Elizabeth deigned to shew her skill as an archeress,
to the detriment of the dappled deer in the wide park beyond. The
silver-plumaged swans yet rode the tranquil waters of the mere, the
burnished pheasants exhibited their gaudy feathers on the sunny bank
beneath the fir-spinny, and the peacocks swept their gorgeous trains
along the stone terrace that skirted the house, as when Tudor royalty
had been feasted there.
It is seldom in England that two mansions of pretensions equal to High
Tor and Carbery Court lie so near together. But in point of splendour
there could be no comparison between the two. The grand Elizabethan
house, justly described in the red-bound county guide-book as ‘a
magnificent place, now the seat of Sir Sykes Denzil, Bart.,’ far
surpassed in size and in symmetry the smaller and older dwelling of
Sir Sykes's noble neighbour. No one would have credited the sunburnt
stranger with any great share of artistic taste or architectural
interest, yet he stood still at an angle of the road whence he could
command an uninterrupted view of Carbery Court, and shading his eyes
with his broad hand, gazed at it with an intentness that was not a
little remarkable. ‘A tidy crib!’ he muttered at last. ‘No wonder if a
chap would run a bit of risk, and pitch overboard any ballast in the
way of scruples, to be owner of such a place as that. And yet’----
He snapped his fingers contemptuously as he spoke, but nevertheless
broke off abruptly in his soliloquy, and drawing out from the
breast-pocket of his rough coat a leathern tobacco-pouch and a short
clay pipe, filled and lighted the latter, and leaning against the
huge bole of an elm-tree, smoked for some time in silence. But if
his outspoken self-communings had come to an end, it would seem
that the train of thought which had suggested them had sustained
no interruption, to judge by the stealthy glances which he cast
now and again towards the grand mansion, flanked as it was by all
the appliances of wealth--park and lake and gardens, home-farm and
stabling, pheasantry, and paddocks where thoroughbred colts disported
themselves during the brief period of liberty that precedes the
education of such equine aristocrats.
A stray policeman passing by would probably have set down the swarthy
stranger as an intending burglar taking a distant survey of the scene
of his projected operations; but the mixture of emotions which the
man's callous face expressed was of by far too complex a character
to be summed up in so commonplace a fashion. There was covetousness
to be sure, and perhaps a spice of malignity; but what appeared to
predominate was a species of cynical enjoyment of the thinker's own
cunning, not unusual with crafty but uneducated persons, who see
themselves on the brink of success. Whatever might be the nature of the
man's meditations, they were presently cut short by the sound of hoofs
on the smooth road near him, as a gentleman riding slowly from the
lodge-gates towards the house came in sight.
As the rider approached him, the man, who had been leaning against the
tree, started, and with an impatient gesture, knocked the ashes out
of his exhausted pipe; then jerking down his hat over his brows with
the air of one whose instinct or purpose it is to shun observation, he
strode off, striking into a side-road which led towards another gate
of the park, by which entrance could be made from the northward. Some
minutes of brisk walking brought him to the verge of the park, whence
he emerged into a wild and broken district of imperfectly cultivated
country lying at the foot of the Dartmoor uplands, that rolled away in
front of him to the edge of the horizon.
For some half a mile beyond the park-wall, the well-tilled fields,
the fences in good repair, and the trim aspect of the few dwellings
that studded the country, differed in no respect from such fields and
fences, such farms and cottages as lay between High Tor and Carbery.
But when the pedestrian reached a guide-post the pointing finger of
which was inscribed with the words, ‘To Nomansland, Dedman's Hollow,
and Dartmoor,’ he began to see before him evidences that he had left
behind him the carefully managed Carbery property, and had entered on
a barren region skirting the Royal Forest, and inhabited by a race
of squatters who wrested with difficulty a bare subsistence from the
sterile soil.
Passing on amid the ragged hedges, the lean cattle, squalid children,
and tumble-down hovels of this unattractive population, but
acknowledging twice or thrice a half-sullen nod or growl of recognition
on the part of some male member of the community who stood whistling
or chewing a straw at gate or gap, the wayfarer at last reached a spot
where, at the junction of four narrow lanes, stood a dilapidated house
of entertainment, its thatched roof stained and broken, and with not a
few of the panes in its unwashed windows rudely replaced by boards or
sackcloth. An inscription in faded letters over the low-browed doorway
had reference to a license to retail beer and spirits for consumption
on the premises, and tobacco; while a board nailed to a dead tree hard
by bore, in thin black characters, the name of _The Traveller's Rest_.
And into _The Traveller's Rest_ the stranger dived, with all the air of
one who feels himself at home.
CURLING.
When a black frost seals up the ground, and ice covers our ponds and
lochs, among the amusements then open to those north of the Tweed there
is none more healthful and exhilarating than the game of curling, the
mode of playing at which we shall presently explain for the benefit of
our non-initiated readers. This ‘manly Scottish exercise,’ as the old
poet Pennycuick calls it, is, as we once before hinted, the worthiest
rival of golf in Scotland. Alas, however, it fights this battle under
immense disadvantages; the good old times seem to have passed away,
when for weeks on end,
O'er burn and loch the warlock Frost
A crystal brig would lay,
and good ice might be confidently counted on for a long time. But being
a pastime solely depending upon ice, and good ice, for its existence,
this only makes the ardent votaries of the game the more eager to take
every advantage of such fleeting chances as the variable winters of our
day send them. Night has often been added to day, when the interest in
a great match has been more intense than the frost, and the ice has
shewn any signs of passing away.
It is _always_ a trial for a curler to see a sheet of ice unoccupied;
and when, on a Sunday, the ‘crystal brig’ on some fine loch lies
smooth and keen, who has not seen hopeful enthusiasts taking a glance
at the virgin expanse, with expression of countenance impossible
to misunderstand! The marvel is that the strong temptation is so
universally resisted, and that no effect has followed the example
set by that Bishop of Orkney two centuries ago, whose ‘process,’
says Baillie in his Letters, ‘came before us; he was a curler on the
Sabbath-day.’
No game promotes sociality more than curling; none unites on one common
platform the different classes of society better than it does.
The tenant and his jolly laird,
The pastor and his flock,
join in the game without patronage on one side or any loss of respect
on the other. Harmony and friendly feeling prevail; and if, on the ice
as elsewhere, all men are _not_ equal, it is because a quick eye, a
sound head, and a steady hand make now the shepherd, now the laird,
‘king o' a' the core.’
Though so eminently a Scottish game, evidence goes to prove that the
pastime was brought to us from the continent not very long ago--three
hundred years or so. Some ultra-patriotic curlers claim for it indeed a
native origin, or at least one lost in the mists of antiquity, citing a
passage in _Ossian_ to prove that the Fingalian heroes beguiled their
winters with the game, because in one passage it is said ‘Swaran bends
at the stone of might;’ but this notwithstanding, it is quite clear
that, as in the case of golf, we are indebted to outsiders for the
first rough sketches of the ‘roaring game.’ The technical language of
the game is all of Low Country origin, and it is supposed to have been
introduced into this country by the Flemish emigrants who settled in
Scotland about the end of the fifteenth century. No mention of it is
made by any writer for long after this; but it must have been well
known in 1607, for Camden, in his _Britannia_, published in that year,
says that in the little island of Copinsha, near the Orkneys, ‘are to
be found in great plenty excellent stones for the game called curling.’
At this time and for long after, the game appears to have been merely
a rough kind of quoiting on ice; indeed for a great part of the last
century its common name in this country was _Kuting_. The stones of
that day, rough undressed blocks--so different from the polished
missiles now used--had no handle, but merely a kind of hollow or niche
for the finger and thumb, and were evidently intended to be _thrown_
for at least part of the course. Since these days, great strides have
been taken in the improvement of the game; now it is highly scientific,
and with its many delicate strokes, its ‘wicks,’ calculations of
angles, of force, and of bias, it may without presumption be called
the billiards of ice. In some places, however, the old game with its
primitive implements, usually flattish stones from the bed of the
nearest stream, still holds its place under the name of ‘channelling.’
In the bead-roll of curling are no such mighty names as those that
golf boasts of; our winter game has not got mixed up with historic
events and personages, as the older pastime has; but what her devotees
lack in greatness is made up by the intense affection shewn by them in
all ages for their favourite sport. It appears to have been a great
game with poets. Allan Ramsay and Burns allude to it, and a host of
minor bards have sung its praises at varying lengths, but with uniform
appreciation of its excellences. One of the most eloquent passages in
Christopher North's _Winter Rhapsody_ deplores the failing popularity
of the game in his later days; for like many other good things, curling
has had its ups and downs in this world. In some few districts where
it once flourished for a time, the interest in the game has died out;
but of later years the establishment of so many clubs has given a
new impetus to the game, which now prospers in its season beyond all
former experience. The south-western districts of Scotland were long
the chosen home of curling, and the players of Lanark and Dumfriesshire
were specially renowned for their great skill in the art; but now it
has spread over the whole country, and the grand matches of the Royal
Caledonian Curling Club witness the friendly rivalry of worthy foemen
from Maidenkirk to John o' Groat's, and excite the enthusiasm of branch
clubs south of the Tweed, and even across the Atlantic.
At Edinburgh, perhaps as much as at any other place, has the game
prospered within the last century, though in one point the game has
lost a recognition it once had, if we believe the old tradition that,
about a hundred and fifty years ago, the Town-Council used to go to
the ice in all the pomp and circumstance that it now reserves for the
Commissioner's procession, with a band playing ‘appropriate airs’
before it, which discoursed sweet music while the fathers of the city
gave an hour or two to the game. The citizens then played on the Nor'
Loch, a sheet of water which in those days divided the Old Town from
the New; when it was drained they went to the ponds at Canonmills, and
subsequently to Duddingston Loch, where arose the Duddingston Curling
Club, instituted in 1795, which has done great things in infusing a new
spirit into the game. Among its members have been many fine curlers and
good fellows, famed in other fields than this; and even if the Club
had done nothing beyond giving us the capital songs of Sir Alexander
Boswell, Miller, and many others, it would have still deserved well of
its country.
Of late years, however, there has arisen a mightier than it--the Royal
Caledonian Curling Club--now forty years old, which numbers among its
members most curlers of note, both at home and abroad; and to which are
affiliated all the local societies, who once a year, when the weather
permits, send their chosen champions to contend at the grand match held
under the auspices of the Royal Club.
Let us now see how the game is played; and first we shall give what is
perhaps the earliest description of the game on record, that given by
Pennant in his _Tour_ in 1792. ‘Of all the sports of these parts,’ he
says, ‘that of curling is the favourite, and one unknown in England.
It is an amusement of the winter, and played on the ice by sliding
from one mark to another great stones of from forty to seventy pounds
weight, of a hemispherical form, with an iron or wooden handle at the
top. The object of the player is to lay his stone as near the mark
as possible, to guard that of his partner, which had been well laid
before, or to strike his antagonist's.’
The game is played on a carefully chosen piece of ice called the
‘rink,’ which should be forty-two yards long, unless special
circumstances--such as thaw and consequently ‘dull’ ice--require it
to be shortened. This piece of ice should be as level, smooth, and
free from cracks as possible; there is usually a trifling bias, which
however to the skilled curler rather adds interest to the game, as it
calls forth additional science in the play.
When the rink is chosen, a little mark is made at each end; this
is called the ‘tee;’ and near that point stands, in his turn, each
player, whose object is to hurl or slide his stones to the opposite
end, by a swinging motion of the arm. Each player also endeavours to
place his stones nearer the tee than those of his opponents. In this
respect curling is precisely similar in principle to the well-known
game of bowls. Round the tees are scratched several concentric circles
or ‘broughs,’ a foot or so apart from each other, by which means the
distance at which stones are lying from the goal is seen at a glance
at any time during the continuance of the ‘end.’ In the normally
long rink, a scratch called the hog-score--usually made wavy, to
distinguish it from any accidental crack--is drawn across the line
of play near each end, eight yards from the tee; and any stones that
have not had impetus enough imparted to them to carry them over this
line are ‘hogs,’ and are put off the ice as useless for that end. A
common number of players in one rink is eight--four against four; but
in some places more play on one side, and in others less, according
to circumstances. As a general rule each man plays two stones. The
game is counted by points; and each stone of a side closer than their
antagonists' nearest, is a point which scores towards the game. It will
be observed that ‘tees,’ ‘broughs,’ and ‘hog-scores’ are in duplicate,
for as in quoits and bowls, ends are changed after each round.
As in bowls so in curling, the office of ‘skip’ of each side is usually
given to the best player; and on his tact and judgment, besides
knowledge of the exact amount of confidence he can place on the skill
of each of his followers depends much of the success of his side. His
chief duty is to stand at the tee for the purpose of directing and
advising the play of each of his fellows, always playing last himself,
that the critical shot on which perhaps victory or defeat hangs, may
be in the best possible hands. Thus, in a rink of four players a side,
the skips stand directors until their third men have played both their
stones; upon which they proceed to the other end and play theirs.
The course of a game is generally something like this, though in no
sport are there greater variations, or more circumstances calling forth
all that judgment, skill, and experience only can teach. The ‘lead’
or first player's object is simple: he tries to ‘draw’ his shot--that
is, to play his stone up the ice towards the end where stands his skip
directing, so that the stone may lie if possible within the rings;
and if he is a skilful player, his stone rests say a few feet short
of the tee. The lead of the opposite side probably does as nearly the
same, or with a little more force applied he perhaps knocks out his
opponent's stone and lies in its place. Each of the leads having played
two stones, the turn of the second player now comes. If an opposing
stone lies near the tee, this player tries to change places with it by
driving it away; but if a stone of his own side is next the tee, his
play will be to ‘guard’ it--that is, to lay his own stone in a direct
line before it, so that the enemy may be less likely to dislodge it. As
the game proceeds it gets more intricate--the stones round the tee may
have been so placed that the ‘winner’ is perfectly guarded from direct
attack. Then is the time for the display of science: an experienced
player by a cunning twist of the wrist may make his stone curl so as
to carry it past the one that is supposed to guard the winning stone;
or he may hit a stone near the winner in an oblique direction, and so
cannon off it on to the winning stone and knock _it_ away. This last is
called ‘wicking,’ and is exactly a stroke of the same kind so necessary
in billiards.
And so the game goes on--a game of give and take; but as Græme says,
who can
Follow the experienced player
Through all the mysteries of his art, or teach
The undisciplined how to wick, to guard,
Or ride full out the stone that blocks the pass!
Stories innumerable are told of the delicate feats of aiming performed
by enthusiasts of the game; and it is wonderful what skill is often
shewn in the shots taken by good curlers with their unwieldy looking
weapons; the narrow ‘ports’ or openings between two stones that they
can make their missiles pass through, and the dexterity they shew in
calculating the bias of the ice and the exact amount of angle necessary
to make their cannons. This too, with stones thirty or forty pounds in
weight!
Each player provides himself with a broom to sweep up the ice before a
too lazy stone; and upon judicious sweeping much of the game depends.
The shouts of ‘Soop! soop!’ that follow the signal of the skip; the
excited gestures of the ‘capering combatants;’ the constant cries of
victory or defeat after the frequent changes of fortune; the general
exhilaration of spirits attending a healthy and exciting exercise in
the bracing air of winter--all tend to make the scene an extraordinary
one. Of course if, instead of the ordinary match or game among the
members of a club, we are witnessing a ‘bonspiel’ or match between two
rival clubs or parishes, the excitement is much intensified. Wraps put
on by the careful goodwives' hands before the curlers left home are
recklessly cast aside; brawny arms vigorously ply the besoms; strong
lungs shout out encouragement; and the engrossed combatants await
the issue of a shot in all the attitudes so cunningly portrayed in
Sir George Harvey's well-known picture. Of course the point of most
breathless interest is when perhaps one shot must decide the game. Hear
how that inimitable curling song-writer, the Rev. Dr Duncan, describes
that moment:
A moment's silence, still as death,
Pervades the anxious thrang, man,
Then sudden bursts the victors' shout,
Wi' hollos loud and lang, man;
Triumphant besoms wave in air,
And friendly banters fly, man;
Whilst, cold and hungry, to the inn
Wi' eager steps they hie, man;
where awaits them the true curlers' dinner of ‘beef and greens;’ to
which simple viands the appetites, sharpened by the keen frost, do
ample justice. And if a temperate tumbler of toddy is emptied, what
then? A merry evening is spent; and however keen the contest has been,
or strong the rivalry between closely matched parishes, we can always
say with the old song:
They met baith merry in the morn,
At night they parted friends.
During these jovial evenings, ‘in words the fight renewed is fought
again,’ and many stories of past curling are told--one of which we
shall take an early opportunity of offering to our readers.
MUSIC AND POETRY.
Art in its different developments may be said to express one
idea--beauty. As in different parts of the world different languages
are spoken, which all express the same thoughts and feelings, though in
different ways, so all the arts are but the various ways of expressing
the one moving spirit, the one idea, which is beauty. Painting exhibits
or expresses beauty of colour; Sculpture, beauty of form; Architecture,
beauty of proportion; Music, beauty of harmony; Poetry, beauty of
thought. Each is in some measure transferable to, or capable of part
expression by, the others. Thus painting may exhibit the beauty of
form as in sculpture, and architecture may combine the beauties both
of painting and sculpture, while poetry can in some measure unite the
properties of each art.
The various thoughts and feelings of humanity are capable of being
expressed in art, in every branch of it. Joy and sorrow, triumph and
despair, can be expressed alike faithfully by music, painting, or
poetry. The pain that is never entirely absent from this painful earth,
aches in sculpture, in verse, and in melody; the love that beats in
the great heart of the universe, breathes from the canvas, the marble,
and the minstrel. Two arts especially are so blended as to be almost
synonymous--Music and Poetry. Poetry is inarticulate music, harmony is
song without words. Poetry is perhaps the highest of all arts, because
all the others appeal to the soul through the external senses; while
poetry, without sound, without beauty either of form or colour, unites
the power of all. Something of the earth is necessary to the production
of the other arts; pigments, marbles, strings, instruments of various
sorts are indispensable to all except poetry; therefore poetry is the
divine art, for it comes direct from the soul. Exquisite word-painting
describes a scene as vividly as any painting; perfect rhythm is the
purest harmony, and all art is combined in a poem which depicts with
the fidelity of painting, which is symmetrical with the perfect
proportions of architecture, and which breathes the melody of music.
From the earliest ages, songs have been the heart-notes of nations;
the simplest form of poetry, yet the most popular, because written
directly from the heart to the heart. Heroic deeds were celebrated in
song, love-stories were immortalised in song, ere there was a note of
written music or a word of written verse. Thus the twin-sister arts
music and poetry, in their infancy scarce distinguishable, passed on
hand in hand; but with the lapse of years they grew more divided, their
different features becoming more developed, until now, their triumphs
have apparently raised a barrier between them, and people forget that
they are twin; but the chord of sympathy is still there. The union
is not _less_; it is only less visible, because more intricate. It
is impossible briefly to state all the points where the sister-muses
are at one; let us simply, by pointing out a few examples from the
great masters of each, attempt to shew that music and poetry are still
closely allied.
The three great moving powers of humanity are Faith, Reason,
Passion--the Soul, the Head, the Heart. Faith, reverence, worship, or
by whatever name may be called that feeling in man which causes him to
adore a being greater than himself, has been expressed in poetry by
Milton; in music by Handel. Reason, the thoughts of the human mind, the
gropings after a true philosophy, has been expressed in the poetry of
Shelley, in the music of Mendelssohn. Passion--each varied emotion that
throbs in the heart of man, is expressed in the poetry of Byron, in the
music of Beethoven. Others might be cited, and resemblances carried
to any extent between poets and musicians; but the above may suffice,
being not merely fanciful definitions, but thorough truths, fully borne
out in fact; not ideal but real.
There is first the poetry and music in which the feeling of worship,
the element of religion, is prime agent. Milton can be fairly taken as
the poet of reverence. Owing to the peculiar circumstances of his life
and times, the great power of his verse is a cry against the follies
and sins of a debased people, an earnest cry for more strength of
purpose, more firmness of will. It all strives to exalt a Deity who was
like to be forgotten by a nation steeped in the vices and frivolities
of Cavalier times. Grand and impressive his verse flows on, a mighty
flood, with the hidden strength which shews itself in calm still
progress.
Like the full rich notes of the organ sound the words of Milton, as
also the noble chords of Handel, whose music, like Milton's verse,
is full of adoration. Strange that both in their later years were
blind. Could it be that the closing of the eyes of the flesh opened
the eyes of the soul to a clearer vision and a more real conception of
the Deity? The majesty of God, the insignificance of man, the eternal
triumph of good over evil, are their themes, and in the same tones are
they uttered. Handel and Milton sound like one voice, now in tones of
beseeching tenderness--_Miserere Domine_ wailing forth the plaint of
sorrow in accents piteous with the burden of woe; again with righteous
indignation they witheringly scathe the enemies of the truth and the
spirit of evil; and, in _Gloria in Excelsis_ they unite in praising the
power of the Deity above all names, the one spirit, the ‘I am’ of the
universe.
From the earliest times until now, man has been trying to solve the
riddle of existence, eagerly striving after a true philosophy which
shall satisfactorily explain to his reason all the complex mechanism
of his nature. The highest intellect has vainly striven to pierce the
mysteries of time and eternity, until the torch of reason becomes
only an _ignis fatuus_, leading to dangerous wilds, where there is
no path. In poetry the pure reason of man has had few such brilliant
exponents as Shelley. Gifted with daring imagination, his genius darted
in its wild flight like the lightning from out the storm-cloud; far
above the earth his spirit seemed to float, while he breathed forth
his marvellous song and toyed with the clouds and the spirits of the
spheres. Intellect was his god; he revelled in the beauty of Nature
and in the mystic shadows of psychological dreams. His eager soul was
ever yearning for a something undefined to satisfy the vague longings
of a mind that will take nothing for granted, that cannot believe what
it does not understand. Therefore the works of Shelley are admirable
examples of the poetry of the _intellect_.
Mendelssohn is his counterpart in music; there is the same vivid
imagination, the same perfection of harmony, the same wealth of
melody in the works of both. His music displays a rich intellect and
a brilliant fancy; in it there is mechanical perfection; there is
all that knowledge and education can do; heart only is awanting. His
cultured mind conjures up sweet sounds, delicate airy visions, grand
solemn strains; but there is never a touch of passion in it all.
Carefully polished into perfection, the intricacies of his music convey
the idea that a vast amount of effort and labour has been bestowed on
their production. But in this he differs from Shelley, for Shelley's
song is free, spontaneous as a bird's, and in it there is the fire, the
passion which Mendelssohn lacks.
Thus, though there are slight differences in the way in which the
intellect is developed in the works of those two masters, yet they both
exhibit, above all, the reason, the intellect of man in its highest
state of culture. Rich, melodious, dreamy are they both; and each
leaves on the listener the same impression as of wandering through a
land of perfect loveliness, peopled by beautiful spirits, chanting
music now full of exquisite fancies, and again uttering wild cries
for that rest and peace which the intellect alone cannot give. A fairy
world is that dream-land of Shelley and of Mendelssohn.
Ever nearer to human nature is the music of the heart, the one thing
in the universe that changes not. Intellect with the advancing
ages advances and changes; religions vary in different lands; but
although languages, manners, everything be different, the heart of man
remains the same: ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.’
Difference of language or of creed is no barrier to the appreciation of
Shakspeare, of Mozart, of Raphael. True genius speaks to human nature
from the depths of an intensest sympathy, a melody, a thought, which no
boundary-line can limit, no distinction of race retard.
How is it that the sublimest music and the most entrancing verse are
the results of sorrow? How is it that ‘sweetness is wrung out of pain,
as the juice is crushed away from the cane?’ Out of the fire comes the
purified gold, and out of the furnace of trial and pain and sorrow,
comes that perfect sympathy which lies at the root of genius. Pain
develops faculties which would otherwise lie dormant, and thus out of
much suffering grew the deathless song of Byron and the immortal music
of Beethoven. Nursed by neglect, fostered by contempt, grew their
soul-children into a life which triumphed over the scorn which had
slighted their infancy--beautiful soul-children, that shall live for
ever in the eternal youth of genius. So long as the heart of humanity
shall continue to throb, so long shall continue Byron's verse and
Beethoven's harmonies. The _heart_, with its passionate longings, its
hope and despair, its delight and its utter weariness, is embodied in
the works of both. Strains of infinite tenderness and burning notes of
passionate intensity, go to the heart of the listener with that strange
undefinable power--that thrill, which is the charm of Beethoven's
music. That composer once remarked that ‘music should strike fire from
the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.’ His music
has accomplished both. The works of other musicians may delight or
astonish; Weber's sweet notes have a home in many hearts, and Mozart's
versatile genius has given to dramatic music its highest expression;
but we venture to say that none exercises that marvellous fascination,
none weaves the spell of enchantment which dwells in the burning notes
of the master musician.
And in Byron's poetry there is the same indescribable attraction,
because there is the same power. At present it is the fashion to
sneer at his magnificent genius, to humble it ever the lower, the
higher is raised the present school, who write of vague shadowy
beings, and are strangely destitute of genuine life or passion. The
conventional society of the present time is most fittingly mirrored in
the conventional poetry of the day. Anything like tender emotion is
carefully concealed. In the poetry of Byron there is no straining after
effect, no halting for a word or a metaphor; on, ever on flows the
song in a resistless tide. His poetry, like that of Burns, his equally
gifted brother, is not _made_; it breathes, it burns; and is a genuine
creation. In Byron's poetry love and hate are no mere affectations;
they are genuinely depicted, and meant; while sorrow is touched with
the tender cadence of a real grief. There beats in all his verse a
true throbbing heart, with all the inconsistencies of temperament which
belong to human nature. _There_ is the secret of his power, the magic
of his verse, which must live so long as hearts shall beat to the tune
of love, and there are sorrows in this world of unrest.
The universality of this heart-music is easily understood, even though
the intellect of man be ever changing; and each new science in its turn
alter the aspect of affairs; each new philosophy seem to overthrow the
previous schools. As knowledge becomes more extended, materialism wages
a sterner battle against idealism, and a ‘reason’ that must comprehend
all the mysteries of existence, that must apply the crucible to
everything, bids fair to abolish ‘heart’ altogether, as an antiquated
emotion; and yet throughout all ages to come, the one touch of nature
will still make ‘the whole world kin.’
Unaffected in the main by religion or education, we see the same
feelings, with all their varying moods, in the inhabitants of the
sunniest climes or of the lands of winter snows. Thus is the heart
of man ever the same. True genius speaks to that heart; hence it is
universal, and can never die. The language of Homer is now esteemed
dead, but is the _Iliad_ dead? The land of Dante has been steeped in
a long sleep, but has the _Inferno_ been forgotten? The birthplace
of Michael Angelo is disputed, but none disputes the power of his
imperishable marbles.
Bright in the beauty of eternal youth, live the song-notes of genius
whether in verse or music; age cannot mar the freshness of their
charm; time cannot lessen the power of their fascination. Empires are
overthrown, victories lost and won, kingdoms once in the first rank
are fallen behind, and young nations are spurring on to the front; the
world, ever in a turmoil, is a perpetual kaleidoscope of change; but
through the clang of battle these voices sound triumphant, and still to
the weary and the suffering they whisper peace and comfort.
THE BELL-RINGER.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.
CHAPTER I.--THE DUMB PEAL.
Over hill and dale, over woodland and moor, over fields and hedgerows,
the snow has thrown her mantle of purity, concealing all defects with
a skilful hand, and making a landscape of fairy-like beauty, enhanced
by the rays of the sun. On the church belonging to the village of
Linden, its beauty was strikingly revealed, as it lay upon every
moulding, and clothed the ivy clustering the tower, contrasted by
patches of dark-green leaves where the wind had relieved them of
their snowy burden, and tracing the outline of each narrow pointed
window and jutting buttress. The graves were thickly covered with
Nature's winding-sheet, and even the mossy tombstones in this village
‘God's-acre’ were whitened by the same pure covering, for the wind had
ceased for some hours, and a ghostly silence pervaded the resting-place
of the dead, until the striking of the village clock in a dull muffled
tone warned the occupants of some adjacent cottages that it was four
o'clock. Clouds of a light gray colour hung low over the earth, and
Nature reposed in a silence that is often the precursor of a storm.
The village of Linden was situated in a valley, picturesquely green
in summer, but subject to heavy snow-drifts in winter, which at times
rendered the road nearly impassable; a fact which was painfully
apparent to a solitary traveller who was toiling wearily on his way
at the time my story opens. As he drew near the churchyard, which
was situated at the entrance to the village, he paused to rest on
the low wall surrounding the inclosure, and drew his plaid around
him, as a protection from the cold, for he shook in every limb, and
his breath went and came in short uneven gasps. A labourer returning
from his work gave him a countryman's ‘good-e'en,’ but he made no
reply; an urchin clambered over the stile to take a short cut through
the sacred precincts, and stared hard as he brushed past the muffled
form; still he moved not, although the fast-deepening gloom of the
short December day was sufficient to urge him to hasten to a shelter
for the night. At last, as the church clock struck the quarter past
four, the stranger rose, and mounting the stile, stepped down into
the churchyard. Removing his plaid from his face, he looked earnestly
around, without fear that he should challenge recognition; he was
alone with the dead. Stumbling with some uncertainty among the graves,
he made for a distant corner, where a door in the ivy-covered wall
and a neatly kept path (from which the snow had been lately swept)
leading to the chancel door, shewed it to be a private entrance to the
churchyard. In this corner stood a cross of Scotch granite, decked with
wreaths of _immortelles_, and still discernible in the twilight was the
inscription:
In Beloved Remembrance of
ALICE, Wife of CHARLES PEREGRINE,
who died August 12, 18--, Aged 52.
Her End was Peace.
With eyes which seemed to strain themselves in his eagerness to read
this inscription, the traveller gathered in the meaning of what he
read, and with cold benumbed fingers painfully traced each carved
letter, to make the dread assurance doubly sure. Clasping the cross,
he sank upon his knees, and indulged in an agony of grief; at last his
emotion overcame him; the fatigue he had previously endured augmented
his suffering; his arms released their hold, and he slid from his
kneeling position on to the ground, lying in an unconscious state on
the verge of a newly dug grave, side by side with the one over which he
had been weeping; and in this dangerous position for a time we leave
him.
At a quarter to eight Nathan Boltz, who was master of the belfry, the
bells, and the ringers, who rung the curfew at eight o'clock, and the
morning bell at five in summer and six in winter, who was sexton and
parish clerk, and one of the principal members of the choir, came to
perform his usual duty. The tolling of the curfew over, Nathan turned
aside to inspect the grave he had lately dug; his astonishment was
intense at stumbling over a prostrate form, and but for his activity he
would have been precipitated into the narrow house so lately prepared
by him. Putting down his lantern, he raised the insensible figure,
and bore it in his arms to his cottage, close at hand; once there
he managed to unlock the door, and placed the stranger gently on the
floor. Running back swiftly for his lantern, Nathan returned with it,
closed and locked his door upon intruders, and brought its light upon
the face of his guest. No sooner had he done this than he started back
in dismay. He knew the man, although he had not seen him for fifteen
years, and time had worked startling changes in that cold impassive
face.
‘'Tis he at last!’ whispered Nathan, as if fearful of being overheard,
although he was alone. For a moment he felt as David might have felt
with Saul sleeping before him; then the passion in his face died out,
and he used every means to restore the sufferer. For some time his
efforts were in vain, but at last he was successful; and the first
glance bestowed upon him by the stranger shewed that he too was
recognised, although neither of them spoke.
Nathan was at his post next morning when the funeral cortège came
quietly through the grounds surrounding the Hall, and was met by the
vicar near the chancel door; but Nathan's mind was preoccupied, and he
scarcely heard or saw anything which took place. He went through his
duties mechanically, even to filling up the grave in silence, although
many lingered near him to speak of her who lay beneath. They thought
him strange, but held him in too much respect to venture a remark.